STILLWATER, Okla. — Poteau couldn’t have asked for a better start to Saturday’s 4A State Championship Game against Anadarko.

The Pirates’ first two series began deep in Warriors territory after taking advantage of big plays in special teams. However, Poteau didn’t come away with any points. Poteau turned the ball over on downs on the first possession while was dealt an injury to playmaking quarterback Jace Pitchford. Poteau fumbled the ball to the Warriors at the Anadarko 1 the second time.

Anadarko responded after the fumble with a 99-yard touchdown drive and then added two defensive TDs in a span of barely more than a minute to build a 21-0 lead in the first quarter. The Warriors then extended it to 34-0 before halftime en route to a 40-0 win for the 4A championship at Oklahoma State University’s Boone Pickens Stadium. It was the second state title for the Warriors (14-0), who also won it in 3A in 2011 and made the 4A title game last season before losing to Clinton.

“Once we did that, that’s so critical when you don’t get any points that early and that just put us in a bad spot and we just couldn’t get out of the hole after that,” Poteau coach Greg Werner said of the team’s missed opportunities early in the game.

“The second defensive touchdown (in the first quarter) pretty much ended it. … Once you go down 21 to guys like that, you’re not going to come back, they’re too good and we got ourselves in a bad spot.”

The Warriors’ swarming defense held Poteau (12-2) to 39 total yards, including just 1 rushing yards and forced four turnovers. In the first half, they held the Pirates to minus-2 yards of offense.

“They are so fast,” Werner said. “They’re everywhere and I kept checking to make sure they weren’t playing with 15 because they were everywhere on us and they’re an awfully good football team. They deserved to win and they’re the best team in the state.”

The Pirates were hampered by a pair of injuries to Pitchford, the team’s senior quarterback. He was shaken up in the team’s opening offensive series and was hit late by an Anadarko player after releasing a pass later in the first half. Pitchford was able to come back both times but wasn’t the same afterward.

“(On the first drive) I hyperextended my knee, I don’t know what happened, there’s something wrong with it but we’re going to go figure it out in a little bit,” Pitchford said. “Then the next drive, I broke my hand. … We were just very limited in what we could do after that.”

Poteau — making its first appearance in a state title game since 1950 — got the first big break of the game after forcing Anadarko to punt on the opening series. But the snap was high, the Warriors’ punter fielded it and was brought down by the Pirates’ Carlos Aguilar at the Anadarko 22.

The Pirates immediately got a first down at the 12. However, Pitchford was shaken up after throwing an incomplete pass on second down and had to temporarily leave the game.

“We don’t make excuses, but (Pitchford) is our man, everything goes through him and that’s tough in the state finals for that to happen,” Werner said. “But we make no excuses, it happens, the kids kept fighting, but he’s the man for us and when he went down, it changed everything, it takes about 99 percent of our offense out of there, but the kids kept fighting.”

Freshman Ben Klutts came in at quarterback after Pitchford’s injury and Poteau eventually faced a fourth down from the Warrior 14. On the fourth down play, Klutts released a pass, but it was tipped by Anadarko linebacker Traymayne Wauahdooah and fell incomplete.

Poteau got another big opportunity in special teams after forcing Anadarko to punt on the ensuing series. The Pirates’ Kendrick Hardaway fielded the punt at the Warrior 44 and returned it inside the 15, and a personal foul penalty on the Warriors moved the ball to the 7, where Poteau had first-and-goal.

But two plays later, the Warriors forced a fumble on a running play and Anadarko safety Mykel Shaw made the recovery at his own 1.

“Our guys had to get lined up, that’s one of the things we talked about all year,” Anadarko coach Kent Jackson said. “If you’re standing in the right spot when the ball is snapped, you have a chance and our guys have done that. They’ve been very physical and been just great defensively and I’m very proud of them.

“We didn’t think it would be like this the first of the game, but I thought our defense played well and really (came through) early to keep the game to where we could make it manageable.”

The Warriors took advantage of the turnover as they went 99 yards in seven plays for the first TD, a 2-yard pitch to tailback R.J. Sink. The PAT gave Anadarko a 7-0 lead with 1:56 left in the first.

Just 16 seconds later, the Warriors made it 14-0. Pitchford threw a pass to Hardaway that was deflected and landed right in the hands of Shaw, who returned the interception 31 yards for the TD.

“I just tried to throw it through a tight window and I kind of threw it a little high; Kendrick tipped it and they intercepted it. … It happens, and we tried to overcome it but we just couldn’t (Saturday),” Pitchford said.

Anadarko’s defense came up huge again three plays later, when lineman Malik Boardingham knocked the ball loose when he made a sack. The ball bounced into the end zone, where Wauahdooah landed on it for the TD and a 21-0 lead, which capped a span of three Anadarko TDs in 1:21.

The Warriors increased their lead to 28-0 in the second quarter on a 32-yard screen pass from quarterback Brandon Pollard to Shaw. Late in the opening half, Anadarko completed a nine-play 83-yard drive as Pollard took a naked bootleg in from 4 yards out with 50 seconds left. The PAT was missed, but the Warriors still held a commanding 34-0 lead.

Anadarko’s final TD came midway through the third quarter when Pollard connected with Sink on a third-down play from 29 yards out.

Boardingham finished with nine tackles and two sacks, while Wauahdooah had 3.5 tackles for losses and a sack. Poteau’s top tackler was sophomore linebacker Austin Archey, who had nine total tackles. Aguilar, a senior linebacker, had seven tackles, with two going for losses.